A Boer War Florence Nightingale

Another woman who was also described as a "Florence Nightingale" (of South Africa and/or the Anglo-Boer War) is something of an enigma and considered to be a borderline "adventuress" which, in the parlance of the times in which she lived, meant that either her morality or social status was questionable and certainly the latter in the case of Melina Rorke.

She was born Melina da Fonesca in South Africa c. 1873. During that era, the colonising British were notoriously snobby and racist towards anyone with Portuguese ancestry so she would have already been marked as something "other" with her mother being a descendant of the famous 1820 Settlers who had unfortunately made the social faux pas of marrying a man who was at one time the Portuguese Consul to what is now Mozambique.

In 1887, Melina married an accountant, Frederick Niland Rorke, in Kimberley. According to the Western Cape Archives, the groom was 23 and she was 19, but Melina states in her memoirs that she was much younger, only 15, and admits to lying about her age to the Registrar. And that's not the only time she was guilty of doing so. She became a mother within a year and also alleges she was promptly a widow, which was total fiction. In fact, she, her husband and her brother, Sebastian, were among the early pioneers to Rhodesia in 1894, where they pegged gold-mining claims. It seems she then went to London in 1896 to complete a nursing qualification but that Frederick "shot through" to Western Australia in her absence. She later obtained a divorce in 1899 on account of his desertion. It is no wonder this is not mentioned in her memoirs as to be a divorced woman as well as of Portuguese extraction wouldn't have enhanced her reputation. 

Her 1938 memoir was originally published in New York by Greystone Press as The Story of Melina Rorke R.R.C. [Royal Red Cross] The Florence Nightingale of South Africa. In it, she tells us about her pioneering life, the Matabele Rebellion and Boer War, and name-drops many famous figures in Southern African history such as Cecil Rhodes, Dr Jameson, Barney Barnato and Robert Baden-Powell.
But Melina was unable to shake off a sceptical reception in Rhodesia where the book was declared to be full of historical inaccuracies and her own wild imaginings, with possibly even some plagiarised sections. However, on the plus side, it remains one of the few first-hand accounts written by a woman who lived in that region of Africa and witnessed important events during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and it is still worth reading today for that background - albeit with the proverbial pinch of salt.
The book was republished as part of the Rhodesiana Reprint Library in 1971 with an even more florid title of Melina Rorke. Her Amazing Adventures in the Stormy Nineties of South Africa's History. Told by Herself. 
Melina is reputed to have left Africa for the United States around 1908, where it is alleged she became an "actress" - not a choice career move for anyone wanting to avoid the dreaded "adventuress" tag. Her son Edgar was supposedly involved in the insurance industry, but what she was really doing those thirty years until she published her memoirs remains a mystery. This closing reference from the dust jacket of the 1971 edition:

"Melina carried on a correspondence with various members of her family in Rhodesia and South Africa until 1940 when a letter was returned marked "deceased". Her husband [Frederic Rorke] who went to Australia is said to have died there in the early 1920s.

During 1950 and 1960 a number of Rhodesians who visited Rhodesia House in London met a Mrs Margaret Meredith who claimed she was Melina Rorke and that she had remarried twice. She died in March 1964, aged 98. Available evidence does not support her claim which serves only to heighten the mystery surrounding Melina Rorke after her departure from Rhodesia."

Romantic, poetic or fabricated memoirs aside, there is no doubt that Melina Rorke was involved in nursing men under awful and challenging conditions during the Boer War, as the Royal Red Cross is not an award given without due merit, its first recipient being, of course, the real Florence Nightingale. (Image http://www.redcross.org.uk/ )
If Melina had to embroider or juicy up the facts of her life in order to sell a book at a profit many years later, she would only be doing what many people have resorted to since autobiography began.

Images are from Rhodesia Reprint edition (copyright Books of Rhodesia Publishing Co. (Pvt.) Ltd., Bulawayo.) The first shows Melina wearing her medal, with the caption, "As the author appeared in 1902 after receiving her decoration from Edward VII". The second is a Testimonial dated 17 May 1900 acknowledging her nursing efforts at both base and field hospitals at Mochudi, Gaberones, Lobatsi and Mafeking. Two of the regiments bearing signatures are British South Africa Police and Southern Rhodesia Volunteers. There are no signatures under the heading of Rhodesia Regiment, and again Melinda's veracity is drawn into question as although her caption informs us that "Not a single man was left alive in the Rhodesia Regiment to sign it," subsequent historians have debunked this as in fact the Regiment had been disbanded and all the men gone their separate ways by the time the Testimonial was prepared.

The Russian Florence Nightingale

A rather curious form of posterity is having yourself named after an asteroid or minor planet, more so if you are not in any way associated with astronomy, astrophysics or the exploration of outer space. The Dictionary of Minor Planet Names by L D Schmadel is worth browsing, if only for its remarkable listing of people, places and things after which these planets are named, from ancient pharaohs to samurai, from HMS Bounty mutineers to B-grade actresses, and there is even Dr Who's Tardis.
Of relevance to this post is No. 3321, known as "Dasha", discovered in 1975 and named after Darya Lavrentevna Michailova, described as the first Russian army sister of charity during the Crimean War, and better known as Dasha Sevastopolskaya. There is little to be found - at least written in English - about Dasha (the woman, not the planet) even with the aid of all-knowing Google.
Her description as an "army sister of charity" is probably not quite correct according to the outline that Helen Rappaport gives about Dasha's achievements in her excellent book No Place for Ladies - The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War. For anyone interested in learning more about numerous unknown women of all nationalities who literally carried buckets behind men during one of the worst military blunders in history, this book is highly recommended reading.
Dasha Sevastopolskaya is just one of them who deserves to be better-known and who can stand tall alongside far more famous women such as Florence Nightingale or Mary Seacole in her accomplishments.

In 1854, Dasha was aged about 18, the orphaned daughter of a Russian sailor. She worked as a laundress and needlewoman in the Russian naval garrison in the Korabelnaya district of Sevastopol. When the British invaded, she sold all that she had, including her chickens and her pig, bought a horse and wagon and loaded it up with barrels of water and food. In disguise as a naval apprentice, she headed into the Russian supply lines where she established the first nursing station of the war, cleaning the men's wounds with vinegar and dressing them with bandages made from strips of her own clothes. She was soon recognised by the sailors who knew her from Korabelnaya but she was allowed to continue her valuable voluntary work and together with other wives of Russian servicemen helped tend to wounded men during the siege. A memorial was erected to her, and Helen Rappaport further tells us:

"Dasha's selfless heroism soon became legendary... News of it reached Tsar Nicholas I in November 1854 and she was awarded 500 silver roubles and the gold medal 'For Zeal', becoming the only working-class Russian woman to receive the award. The following year she married and opened a tavern; imperial generosity responded with a dowry of one thousand silver roubles from the Tsarina."

Unlike Britain, Russia was much more generous in acknowledging the valuable service of all kinds of women, including ordinary army wives, in the Crimea. Rappaport tells us around 120 Sisters of Mercy, a semi-religious order founded by the Tsar's sister-in-law after the Battle of Inkerman, received both gold and silver medals for their work, and 'For Zeal' was also presented to women who carried supplies and ammunition to the bastions throughout the bombardment. Some even received higher award military medals 'For Gallantry'. (Image: Medal awarded to Russian participants of the Defense of Sevastopol in 1854-55.)

In 1855, Dasha married Private Maxim Khvorostov and continued to work at one of the city hospitals for the rest of her life. When she retired, the patients collected money to buy an icon of the Saviour and presented it to her. She died in Sevastopol in 1911.
In case you were wondering, yes, Florence Nightingale is also celebrated with an asteroid, No. 3122 discovered in 1981 at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. It is classified as a "near-Earth asteroid and a potentially hazardous one". Sounds rather appropriate for the no-nonsense and determined Florence.

Some wonderful artwork and history about the Russian side of the Siege of Sevastopol and in which Dasha is mentioned can be found here.

But wait, there are more...

My previous post on ladies in lighthouses has led me to discover even more "Grace Darlings" around the world who could claim similar and far more impressive sea rescues than the original Grace. If anyone reading this knows of others I may have missed, I'd be really interested in hearing about them. My contact is regina.of.arbeiaATgmailDOTcom.

In Newfoundland, there was 17 year old Ann Harvey, whose first effort occurred in 1828, a decade before that of the more famous Grace, in which she helped to save at least 163 people, and on her second rescued another 25. Clearly, Ann just didn't have the right sort of journalist onside at the critical time in order to spread word of her deeds far and wide, as there would have been an added heart-tugging bonus as the rescue included the family dog (a Newfie, naturally enough!) Ann also has a Canadian coast guard vessel named after her (image from CCGS website) and she is even the subject of an opera.

Another Canadian, on which there is scant information, was Roberta (Bertha) Boyd of New Brunswick. A description of her feat in rescuing two men on St Croix River can be found here. Was her middle name really Grace, or did she receive it as an extra embellishment for her efforts?

"Her heroism didn't go unrewarded, she received an award from the Federal Government. It was a gold watch that had inscribed on it; 'in recognition of her humane exertions in saving life in the St. Croix River.' And the Department of Marine and Fisheries gave her a new boat with the words; Roberta Grace Boyd, Grace Darling of the Saint Croix on the stern. Grace Darling was, of course, the famed lifesaver of England’s lighthouse lore.
The incident surely did make Roberta(Bertha) Boyd famous but it didn't go to her head. she reportedly said in a later newspaper account; 'Please don't speak of it. Indeed, I did nothing worth describing.' Thats the true mark of a heroine there!"

Of course she would have said something like that as, in common with all lighthouse heroines, she would have been a practical, modest and self-effacing woman.

Although not a lighthouse keeper, Huria Matenga (Julie Martin) became New Zealand's Grace Darling after she helped in the rescue of the crew of the Delaware and the local press of the day went into the usual superlatives about a woman swimming “out through raging waters and, after a desperate struggle” bringing ashore the line. Like many of the other rescue stories, the actual truth of Huria's efforts might be a little more prosaic, but positive attention for achievements normally the province of men is always welcome. You can read more about Huria (Julie) here and here. Huria also sat for an official portrait, which can be seen at the Suter Art Gallery, Nelson, New Zealand.

Australia's Grace Darling was another one with the appropriate first name. She was Grace Vernon Bussell. A member of the Western Australia pioneering family who gave their name to Busselton, she lives on in various landmarks herself in Gracetown and Lake Grace, perhaps more for the fact that she became the wife of the Surveyor General than a way of commemorating her famous efforts on a horse (named, appropriately enough, Hero) in the raging waves, as shown in this engraving from the State Library of Victoria. Grace Bussell also was awarded a medal and featured in books and stories for years after.

Perhaps this poem by the Reverend C W Ray published in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1878, entitled "Grace Vernon Bussell, the heroine of Western Australia" sums up all the "Grace Darlings" who ever were, with its abundance of 19th Century sentimentality and poetic licence, plus the romantic novel ingredients of presentiment, doomed souls in a raging sea, a brave steed and an innocent lass of "classic brow", "dark, glistening eyes" and "golden ringlets streaming in the wind" who has a date with destiny:

The night closed in, and darkness like a pall,

The gaunt and creeping shadows overspread;

While clouds of blackness hoarsely growled their rage,

Illumined by the lightning's fitful glare,
Which, far away behind the mountain peaks,
Seemed dancing, as tho' beckoning on the storm,
And panting for the sight of coming woe!
The hills kept silence, as in breathless awe;
And trembled at the muttered threat of doom;
While Grace, from out the window, gazed entranced;
Till, startled by the cricket's sharp shrill cry
Which by the sultry air, and deepening gloom
Was coaxed in noisy march from out the wall:
Then, she arose; drew in and closed the blinds;
And wishing each “Good night, and pleasant dreams”,
She soon was kneeling by her own soft couch,
And breathing out her solemn evening prayer.
‘Ere she arose, the rising wind, in grief
Was sighing, moaning, through the forest trees;
And in a moment more, the howling blast
Burst overhead ; and made her heart stand still.
But, when at last the frightful din had ceased,
And rush and roar were followed by the rain.
Secure beneath the well-thatched roof, she slept!
How long, none knew. She slept, and dreamed and waked;
Waked with a cry of horror, loud and long,
That roused each slumbering inmate of the house.
The storm had passed, and through the rattling blinds
The moon sent kindly beams; yet, lingering winds
Seemed like the distant wail of breaking hearts.
At length, offended and reluctant sleep
Came slowly back, and softly kissed away
The whispered prayer upon her parted lips.
But, when the clock struck three, with sudden start,
With trembling, and with wildly throbbing heart
She woke again; and, to her fancy wild,
Excited by the thrice-repeated dream,
Each hammer-stroke seemed like a signal-gun
Of vessel in distress, far out to sea.
She dreamed that, in the darkness and the storm,
She saw a steam-ship thrown upon the rocks,
And terror-stricken sailors crowd the boats;
And heard a mother's frantic cry for aid;
Who, with a lovely infant in her arms,
With streaming eyes and wild imploring look,
Was clinging to the parting wreck for life;
While each mad wave struck at her frail support,
And coldly mocked her prayer and cherished hope.
So vivid and so real was the dream
That Grace arose, impatient for the light,
Resolved upon a visit to the shore
At break of day, although ten miles away.
No sooner did the twilight gild the East,
Than Ned, the drowsy stable-boy, was called
To feed the young and handsome dapple-gray;
A horse as fleet and tireless as the wind,
The pride of all the town and country round.
All things made ready for the rapid ride,
Grace paced the hall, with restless, anxious step;
With frequent sigh, that time dragged on so slow,
And with her hand upon her aching heart;
For still she seemed to see upon the wreck
The bloodless faces of that vessel's crew;
Still seemed to hear that mother's piteous wail,
And the low smothered sob of her sweet babe!
Just as the sun had crowned the highest hills,
The dapple-gray was neighing at the door,
As in impatient haste to be away.
With gentle words, Grace stroked his arching neck;
While Ned put on an extra linen girth:
Then, bounding to the saddle in a trice,
She bravely galloped down the forest path;
Nor slackened speed, till she had reached the cliff,
Which, high above the beach, o'erlooked the sea.
Then she beheld a scene that thrilled her through,
And dimmed her eyes with sympathetic woe!
Far out from shore, a ship was on the rocks;
And passengers and crew, upon the wreck.
With angry waves were battling hard for life.
Midway between the stranded ship and shore,
A capsized boat was drifting to and fro;
And to it mothers with their children clung;
While clear, above the breakers' deafening roar,
Grace heard a woman's cry, which chilled her blood:
And waiting not, she sought a rugged path
Down which the hardy wreckers sometimes climbed,
And down the fearful steep, with frightful leaps,
O'er trunks of fallen trees and ragged rocks,
As tho' upheld by angel hands, she rode!
Nor did she pause till her strong dapple-gray
Stood panting, on the rough and wreck-strewn shore.
Then, while the noisy waves broke round his feet,
She leaned upon his neck in fond caress,
And sobbed, "Now, Hero, comes the tug of war!"
Those mothers and their children must be saved,
Or friends will never welcome our return!
Then, raising her dark, glistening eyes to heaven,
Her hat was lifted from her classic brow;
Her cheeks were wet with mingled spray and tears;
Her golden ringlets streaming in the wind;
While from her livid lips burst forth the prayer:
“Thou who once didst walk upon the waves,
And to thy tempest-tossed disciples come
With words of cheer, and calm the troubled deep;
Hear me, and calm my wildly beating heart!
Give Hero strength; and give me nerve to guide;
That we may safely bring from threatened death
The helpless ones now struggling in the surf!”
A moment more, and drawing close the rein,
Grace and her fearless steed were in the sea,
And wrestling hard with the tumultuous floods!
With tearful eyes, and anxious, aching hearts,
They watched her from the distant trembling wreck;
And saw her rise from overwhelming waves,
When horse and rider both, at times, seemed lost.
And once, entangled in a broken raft,
Her princely steed seemed ready to despair.
And dropped his neck upon a broken spar!
But Grace's quick cry gave him new strength and life,
And bravely, with caress, she urged him on.
The second line of roaring breakers passed,
They reached the boat, and safely brought ashore
Each half-drowned woman, and with each her child;
And last of all, a half-dead sailor boy!
Then, while with hawser stretched from ship to shore.
The stronger helped the weaker ones to land,
To tell the news, and bring the rescued aid,
Grace whirled away, all dripping from the waves,
The sea-foam dropping from the flowing mane
And quivering flanks of her proud dapple-gray;
Nor did the noble fellow's courage fail,
Till he was standing by her father's door;
From whence, with needful stores, her startled friends
Were hastening soon, to wrecked ones on the shore.

Women in Boats - some Lighthouse Heroines

Old lighthouses can be spectacular and awe-inspiring, located as they so often are in remote and dangerous locations, and one can only have great admiration for the men who had to design and construct them in the first place, as well as those who came after and operated them: the keepers, their assistants and families who had to keep the light burning every night for untold years on end.
Before writing about lesser-known lighthouse heroines, one simply cannot avoid the first one to grab the headlines: Grace Darling who was, according to a florid poem much beloved of teachers in the British Empire days, "... an English maid, pure as the air around her, of danger ne'er afraid ..." and whose actions "... tell the wide world over, what English pluck can do ..."
The story of Grace and her rescue of passengers from the Forfarshire is too well-known to repeat at length here, although the bare truth is that she was just commandeered at short notice to assist in the rescue due to the absence of her father's assistant. She simply did what all able-bodied family members of lighthouse keepers were expected to do, and that was row the boat in an emergency. At first, Grace was not even mentioned in news reports but then somewhere along the way a hack journalist spotted a good yarn and he went into hysterical hyperbole about this virginal flower of English womanhood who boldly braved the fury and tempest of the turbulent seas to rescue near doomed souls with skill and dexterity that had no match, etc. blah etc. After she was awarded a couple of medals for bravery, the Darling family nearly went nuts with the ensuing publicity and being hounded by voyeurs and the paparazzi of the day, not to mention a proliferation of romantic portraits that looked nothing like plain Grace, as well as poems, songs, and product endorsements.

As with all good celebrity stories, there is nothing like dying young to ensure tabloid immortality, which Grace did at the age of 27, and the legend kept growing until it imploded under the weight of its own Victorian sentimentality. Even today, however, there are still tourists sucked in by the romantic and tragic story and drawn to Grace Darling's grave in the churchyard in Bamburgh, Northumberland.

Image: 19th Century engraving of children at Grace's tomb.

The Americans can boast a large number of rescuing lighthouse heroines, some better known than others.

Joan Druett's excellent book "She Captains" devotes an entire chapter to these women and there are several more works that can be searched via http://www.bookfinder.com/ such as "Women Who Kept the Lights - an Illustrated History" by  M L and J C Clifford.

One was Maebelle Mason, daughter of the lighthouse keeper on the Detroit River, who launched a small skiff and rowed a mile to rescue a drowning man. She was able to pull him aboard the skiff and row back to Mama Juda Island with the overturned boat in tow. Maebelle was awarded the Silver Life Saving Medal plus a gold medal from the Ship Masters Association for her heroics. More detail click here (scroll down to Mason).

A woman with a more impressive rescue haul than Grace Darling, was Kate Moore of Fayerweather Light, Connecticut, who was reputed to have saved 21 lives in her long years at the lighthouse. Kate didn't die young or beautiful enough to have become a legend like Grace Darling, but the nature of her hard life is reflected in her portrait, and her own summary of the lonely life of a child of a lighthouse keeper of the time.

"You see, I had done all this for so many years, and I knew no other life, so I was sort of fitted for it. I never had much of a childhood, as other children have it. That is, I never knew playmates. Mine were the chickens, ducks and lambs and my two Newfoundland dogs."
Image: Kate Moore (Bridgeport Public Library Historical Collections)

Not all lighthouse heroines were destined for a lonely, virginal existence. Abbie Burgess Grant who had sole responsibility for her father's light at the age of 17 during a terrible storm at Matinicus Rock, married another lighthouse keeper. In later years, she wrote:

"It has almost seemed to me that the light was part of myself. ... Many nights I have watched the lights my part of the night, and then could not sleep the rest of the night, thinking nervously what might happen should the lights fail.

I wonder if the care of the lighthouse will follow my soul after it has left this worn out body. If I ever have a gravestone, I would like it in the form of a lighthouse or beacon."

Abbie had her wish, or near enough, as a US Coastguard Buoy tender was named after her.

Another woman recognised by having a tender named after her and with an even more formidable rescue rate of 50 is that of Kate Walker, keeper of the Robbins Reef Lighthouse for over 30 years and second only to "Lady Liberty" herself, as the most famous woman in New York Harbour.

Although not strictly a lighthouse heroine, Canadian Abigail Becker was a regular rescuer from the shores of Lake Erie and is an exemplary example of the tough, pioneering 19th Century woman. Not only did she save 11 individuals in total (including one who had fallen down a well), she also managed to raise 17 children on her own. Her life story is available to read online at Internet Archive.

Image:Abigail Becker in old age

Perhaps the most famous American heroine of all was Idawalley Zorada (Ida) Lewis, who had a brief stint at marriage, but decided the solitary life of a lighthouse keeper was preferable. She was feted by presidents, popularised in the press and in song and dance, and awarded medals for rescuing upwards of 18 or more lives in the 39 years she was keeper at Lime Rock, Rhode Island, for which she was called "America's Grace Darling" and "Bravest woman in America".

Not only does she also have a buoy tender named after her, but she received the ultimate recognition in having the light she had looked after being renamed the Ida Lewis Light and her name also lives on in the Ida Lewis Yacht Club of Newport, RI.

A Rose Island by any other name

It would be interesting to research how many geographical features of the world that have been discovered by men are named after women: not royal or privileged women such as Queen Victoria, who probably heads the list around the planet, but after ordinary wives, mothers, daughters or sweethearts.

As much of the world was mapped in an age when even the most enlightened man considered women to be second-class citizens, the story of Rose de Freycinet is unique.
If her story were fiction people would call it romantic nonsense, but it is all completely true.
In 1817 she was aged just 22 when against all official rules her husband of three years, Louis de Freycinet, decided he couldn't bear to be parted from her so he smuggled her aboard his vessel Uranie which was to embark on a three-year scientific voyage into the unknown.
The only woman in a crew of 125, Rose had to face all the same fears and apprehensions of the men: the hazards of the sea, unfamiliar climates, tropical diseases, scurvy and dysentery. 

While Rose wasn't the first woman to have circumnavigated the world, she was the first to have left documents and letters detailing her experiences. Marc Serge Rivere's English translation of her journal, "A Woman of Courage", tells her story in detail and it is a refreshing change from the often dull and laborious expedition journals of men to have a woman's almost chatty perspective and to learn about bitchy women in Mauritius and greedy aristocrats in Hawaii, the hospitality of the convict colony at Sydney and hair-raising encounters with pirates off New Guinea. To top it off, there is even the shipwreck of Uranie on the Falkland Islands on her return to France.
Louis named a small atoll in what is now American Samoa after Rose, and the expedition's artist, Jacques Arago, said of her:

And in return for so much inconvenience, for facing so many dangers, for such deprivation, what recompense did she receive? What glory was hers? Alas! What did it matter to this brave lady, taken from her friends and from all her admirers at such an early age, that her name had been given to a small island a league in diameter at the most, to a sharp rock surrounded by reefs which we had discovered in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?

But Rose was happy and proud all the same:

It is done; my name has been linked with a small corner of the world.

For more about Rose, see talk given by Myra Stanbury
Woodside Valley Foundation


Original images of Rose and Louis in possession of de Freycinet family

 Photo of Rose Island by Phillip Colla

A Russian Countess from Down Under

Some of the best and most remarkable human interest stories are to be found in small publications that go unnoticed by the world at large and are often stumbled upon by accident. These are usually produced by family research or historical societies with the aid of local sponsorship or grants, or are self-published at their own expense by descendants. They can be a treasure trove of historical information and real insight into the lives and achievements of those who have been forgotten by subsequent generations.
A recent addition to my collection is a slim volume by Susanne Foster Atkins entitled "How a Red Cross V.A.D. Became a Russian Countess and Other Soldiers' Stories" *. 
It caught my eye largely because I have both a VAD and Russians in my own Atkins family tree and naturally my curiosity was aroused.

Much of the book focuses on the stories of the male relatives in Atkins' family, one of whom died during the Boer War and was buried at Umtali, Rhodesia (a place mentioned in an earlier blog) and another who died at Polygon Wood in France during World War I - their stories would be common to so many families who lived during those eras.

However, it is Atkins' Great Aunt Lil - Lilian Avice Foster OBE - who is unique and more than worthy of a prominent place in history.

Lilian was an Australian, born in Sale, Victoria, in 1870. Her father was a magistrate and during his time at Beechworth, he sat for the indictment of the famous bushranger, Ned Kelly. Lilian remembered Ned and his "black, beady eyes" and how children danced alongside him as he was to led to the Court House, while he pretended to shoot at them.

Lilian went on to study and teach piano and it was while she was undertaking extra study in Berlin in 1914 that her world changed forever and she never played piano again. She joined the war effort as a V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment) and after serving in London, France, and the island of Lemnos, ended up " ... as a Quartermaster of three hospitals under the British Committee of the Russian Red Cross". Atkins further summarises her Great Aunt Lil's achievements as follows:

"She is quite possibly the most notable Australian woman to have served in the Great War ... She received the British War Medal, the Victory Medal with an oak leaf for being mentioned in despatches, the Russian Orders of St. Stanislas and St. Anne, and the O.B.E. for service to new settlers when she returned to Australia [and] the Coronation Medal with an Authorisation letter from Buckingham Palace 1937".

It was for her work in Turkey with Russian refugees escaping from the Bolsheviks that earned her the highest Tsarist accolade from General Wrangel, the leader of the White Russian Army and Provisional Government. (Both of the Russian Orders carry personal nobility, thus Lilian was entitled to call herself a Countess.)
Lilian returned to Australia and continued with welfare work until she died in 1955. She was also a regular volunteer at Anzac Day Dawn Services in Melbourne.

* Published Colando Press 2004, PO Box 484, Hobart, 7001. Copyright Susanne Foster Atkins.

Bucket of Enlightenment

I must admit I'd never been aware of any women in the life of the Buddha until I read an online article from the San Francisco Chronicle about a new novel by Gabriel Constans called Buddha's Wife.

I really oughtn't to have been astonished that I didn't know Buddha had a wife, because all the major religions have been founded by men who needed someone to carry the buckets.

Aside from the popular overload of Holy Grail and Jesus-married-Mary-Magdalene-and-moved-out-West wacky theories and novels, the official stance is that Christ was a celibate bachelor who lived with a lot of other men and started a rather worrying tradition in the church about what happens to bachelors and enforced celibacy.

The personal life of Abraham has murky undertones - was first wife Sarah really his half-sister? - and then there's that deliberate desert abandonment of another wife, Hajar, and whose son in turn begat several generations that begat one Muhammed. And he in turn founded a religion but still had time for eleven wives, including one underage - something that might have been perfectly legal in his day but would now place him in the rock spider bracket.

So Yasodhara is not much different, just your typical neglected wife of a workaholic although it seemed she eventually found a kind of fortitude of her own, forgave her wandering husband and became a nun working on his cause: probably her only option.
It is really encouraging to see that it is a male author who has noticed her absence from the Western mainstream and has given her some recognition. Congratulations to Gabriel.